AYANEO Flip Review with video – Awesome Keyboard or Dual Screen handheld gaming PC

AYA NEO caused a bit of a stir when they announced a clamshell with a choice of keyboard or dual screen handheld gaming PCs. Let’s find out in our AYANEO Flip review if two is better than one, as we take a look at both models, compare their features and performance, play a bunch of games and emulators, and decide which one is best.

AYANEO Flip review video

AYANEO Flip Unboxing

We will start our AYANEO Flip review with an unboxing. The AYANEO Flip Dual Screen (DS) and AYANEO Flip Keyboard (KB) portable gaming PCs come with the same contents, we will unbox the Dual Screen model. 

First we have a user guide and some info sheets. Underneath there is the AYA NEO Flip itself, we will show them in more detail shortly.

Inside the first box we have a charger, and you can find adapters for most plug socket types in the second box. Also in the second box are two USB Type-C to Type-A adapters

In the third box there are two grips which you can replace on the underside of the Flip to provide more grip. And in the fourth and final box is a USB Type-C cable.

AYANEO Flip Overview

We continue our AYANEO Flip review with an overview of the two models. The AYANEO Flip is available in two models, AYANEO Flip KB with a keyboard and AYANEO Flip DS for Dual Screen. Both measure around 7.08 x 4.01 x 1.17 in (18.0 x 10.2 x 2.98 cm) and weigh 650g (1.433 lbs).

The AYA NEO Flip KB mobile gaming PC flips open to reveal a backlight keyboard. I have to admit I am not a fan of the grey text on silver keys, it makes them a little hard to see when the backlight is not on. The backlight is RGB and can be customised in the AYA Space software. The keys are very small so you would not be able to type as like on a laptop keyboard. It’s perfectly fine for thumb typing while browsing, logging into games, short messages etc.

The AYA NEO Flip DS model flips open to reveal a second display. It is a 3.5” IPS touchscreen with a 960×480 resolution. By default it shows the system stats on screen and you can interact with it to change the performance settings, access shortcuts or display software on the screen. Handy for watching a video guide while playing a game or having discord chat open while gaming. We will try it some more later in the review.

Both AYANEO Flip portable gaming computers have a 7” IPS touchscreen with a 1080P resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The display’s hinge fully opens to just under 180 degrees and has two angled locks in between for the most popular viewpoints at 120 and 150 degrees.

On the lower half around the sides are Hall effect joysticks, D-Pad, gaming buttons and two additional buttons for the AYANeo Space software.

Beside the volume button is an additional button on the DS model which controls the screen functionality. To the right is the power button with integrated fingerprint scanner and an optical finger mouse. On the bottom is a 3.5mm headphone port.

Along the top are shoulder buttons and hall effect triggers, beside those are macro buttons you can configure in the AYA Space software. Next we have a Oculink port for connecting an eGPU to for example, more on this later in our benchmarks. There is a USB 4 and a 3.2 port, finishing with a covered micro SD card reader.

AYA NEO Flip technical specifications

Next in our AYANEO Flip review we take a look at the technical specifications, check out the battery life, fan noise and temperatures.

	AYANEO FLIP KB	AYANEO FLIP DS
DISPLAY (MAIN)	7″ 1080P IPS Dynamic Screen, 120Hz, 368 PPI, 400 nits, 100% sRGB	7″ 1080P IPS Dynamic Screen, 120Hz, 368 PPI, 400 nits, 100% sRGB
DISPLAY (SECONDARY)	N/A	3.5″ IPS screen, 960×640 resolution, 3:2 ratio
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, 8 cores 16 threads up to 5.1GHz at 28W TDP	AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, 8 cores 16 threads up to 5.1GHz at 28W TDP
GPU	AMD Radeon 780M	AMD Radeon 780M
RAM	Up to 64GB LPDDR5X	Up to 64GB LPDDR5X
STORAGE	Up to 2TB M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 SSD	Up to 2TB M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 SSD
I/O	1x USB 4 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1x Oculink, 1x UHS-II Micro SD Card reader, 1x 3.5mm headphone jack	1x USB 4 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1x Oculink, 1x UHS-II Micro SD Card reader, 1x 3.5mm headphone jack
PHYSICAL KEYBOARD	Customisable RGB backlit keyboard	N/A
CONNECTIVITY	Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2	Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
BATTERY	45Wh	45Wh
SIZE	7.08 x 4.01 x 1.17 in (18.0 x 10.2 x 2.98 cm)	7.08 x 4.01 x 1.17 in (18.0 x 10.2 x 2.98 cm)
WEIGHT	650g (1.433 lbs)	650g (1.433 lbs)

Both compact gaming PCs have a 45Wh battery which in our tests lasted around 1 hour 8 mins for the DS model, and 1 hour 13 for the KB model.

Also while running the benchmarks we tested the fan noise and thermals. We got around 67db highest fan noise on both. For the temperature tests we saw a highest temperature of 51°C on the KB model. It was a few degrees higher on the DS with 57°C, most likely due to the additional heat build up from the 2nd display.

System benchmarks and comparisons

We will now benchmark both models in our AYANEO Flip review, as well as compare them with other similar handhelds including the AYANEO Slide, GPD Win Mini and GPD WIN MAX 2 2023 for their performance.

PCMark10

PCMark tests the overall day to day performance of the device, from web browsing, to video conferencing, working  with large office documents and even image editing.

We see great scores for the AYA NEO Flip Keyboard but the AYA NEO Dual Screen falls a bit behind. Overall they are both good scores and it means while not gaming you can also use the Flip for boring work tasks just fine.

3DMark

On 3DMark we are running the Time Spy, Night Raid and Fire Strike benchmarks.

The AYANEO Flip KB takes the lead over the DS on all three tests, with a noticeable gap in particular on the Night Raid benchmark. Overall both models remain competitive with the other handhelds.

Cinebench

And Cinebench tests the CPUs single and multi core performance.

For single core we see strangely low performance for the AYANEO Flip DS compared to the KB compact gaming PC. We rerun the test in case there was an issue and got the same score. But when compared with other models, the scores can vary quite a bit. For multi core, we do see the DS drop a little there.

Gaming Benchmarks

We continue the AYANEO Flip Review with some gaming benchmarks and compare them with similar handhelds.

Forza Horizon 5 

We are running Forza Horizon 5 on the very low graphics settings.

Overall both AYANEO Flip models do very well, with the best frames per second at 28W TDP both resolutions. We do see lower performance at low TDP but this can be how the power is set up.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

The two handheld gaming computers have pretty similar results on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

We do see some differences when compared to other portable gaming computers, similar performance to the Slide, but the GPDs have higher scores. Again, this can be partly due to how the power is set up and different drivers.

Street Fighter VI

Our last benchmark is Street Fighter 6 on the Highest graphics settings.

Again the AYANEO performance on Battle Ground is lower than its GPD and ONEXPLAYER counterparts, and we see more comparable FPS on the other two tests.

OcuLink Benchmarks 

As the AYANEO Flip has an OcuLink port, we are able to test the performance with an eGPU with the internal display and an external 4K monitor as part of our AYANEO Flip Review.

We are testing this with the brand new GPD G1 2024 eGPU docking station, but it will also work equally as well with the ONEXPLAYER ONEXGPU eGPU docking station.

3DMark

The Flip got very good scores on both internal display and output to external display.

On external display we got over 50,000 on Night Raid which is our highest score on any handheld with an eGPU.

Forza Horizon 5

Again the Flip does very well across all the resolutions. It takes the lead in all but 720P with very good frame rates.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

The performance switches in favour of the Win Max 2 2023 on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

We saw the same differences in the integrated GPU tests so it can depend how your power balance is set up.

Street Fighter VI

And our last benchmark is Street Fighter 6 at 4K and 1080P on the highest graphics settings. At 1080P we are essentially getting full frames per second. And at 4K we can see very similar frames per second for both models, with a frame or so error margin.

Benchmark Summary

We did notice that on the dual screen handheld gaming computer that there were some performance drops if the AYA Space software was running. This could cause anything from a few FPS drops up to a more noticeable amount. We performed a few different tests with and without the software running on the second display to confirm this and it can affect performance. 

But overall the AYA NEO Flip models are decent performers. We did see one or two instances where performance is lower than others, and we did also see very good performance with OcuLink. Overall nothing much to complain about on the KB model, maybe a little performance issue with the DS model though.

Game Performance

As part of this AYANEO Flip Review, we played a bunch of games to see their best performance with highest graphics settings we could get. Here are some games running with some info in the images.

Emulation Performance

The 7840U is great for emulation and generally you should have no issues running emulators up to the more recent ones. 

We will take a brief look at some of these more recent emulators and also check out one that takes advantage of the second display.

Final Thoughts

Lets wrap up our AYANEO Flip review with some of our thoughts on the AYA NEO Flip. Which mobile gaming PC is better? Here are my main takeaways after spending some time with the handhelds..

The keyboard is functional but only for brief text as you would expect, not a fan of the grey on silver but that’s a personal opinion. The second display is a nice feature to have, if AYA added an onscreen keyboard there it would mostly negate the need for a physical keyboard. But otherwise, how often would you actually use the second display? I struggled to find any long term uses for it. It’s something to consider.

In terms of price, the Flip dual screen portable gaming PC is around $40 higher than the Flip keyboard, it is not a massive difference but you can save a bit of cash if the second screen is not something you desire. 

And for performance both models are roughly the same performance as each other. But do keep in mind that we did see some performance drops on the DS when AYA Space was running on the second display. This varied between games and TDPs but otherwise seemed fine when we closed the software. 

And if you have or plan to use an eGPU with the AYANEO Flip then you can expect very good performance. The Internal graphics performance is higher than most other portable gaming computers, and we saw some of the best benchmark results for external display.

Personally I would go for the AYANEO Flip KB out of the two. The AYANEO Flip DS is a bit of a gimmick in my opinion. Unless you are a die hard dual screen emulator fan, you will probably switch off the second display to save some battery life and performance after the initial wow factor wears off.

You can learn more and buy the AYA NEO Flip here. Use the discount code FLIPPIN5OFF for a 5% discount on the checkout. Code is valid from one month of this review posted and can not be used during store sales or promotions.

Thanks for reading or watching our AYANEO Flip review! Let us know which one you would buy in the comments, we are always interested to read others opinions and which model they would choose. What would you use the second screen for?

AYANEO FLIP KB / DS